The 101 Adventures: Day of Reckoning
by Zombie Boy
Summary: This is a one shot from when IsrealBauman and I's Lone Wanderers were growing up in the Vault.


The 101 Adventures

" _The Day of Reckoning"_

Oo000ooo000oO

"Hey Liquid, you in there?"

Lawrence "Liquid" Cox, son of Dr James Cox, physician of Vault 101, looked up from where he was finishing up his work assignment for the day and wondered what his friend wanted.

"Yeah, Butch, I'm in here. Whaddya want?" he asked.

"We need to talk about your sister." Butch answered.

" _Brittany must have beaten him up again."_ Liquid thought and turned to look at the door. "Okay, come on in."

The doors to the storage area he'd been sweeping up slid apart and Butch stepped in, sporting a noticeably swollen jaw on the right side of his face. Liquid smirked in amusement and crossed his arms.

"Let me guess: My sister beat the crap out of you again." Liquid said as way of an opener.

Butch scowled. "It was me and Wally." he muttered.

Liquid nodded. "I see."

Butch took in a deep breath and exhaled noisily. "We gotta do something about her, man. We can't have any fun with her running around beating us up."

"Butch, if you think that there's anything _I_ can do about her, you're out of your mind." Liquid told him flat out. "Don't you think if I could have did something about her messing up my plans, I would have by now?"

"We could threaten to beat her up." suggested Butch. "That might work."

Liquid shook his head at Butch's suggestion. "Butch, if she could beat you and Wally up, what makes you think that she wouldn't be able to clean my clock too?"

"What if I had my gang backing us up?" asked Butch. "And we wouldn't be beating her up, we'd just be threatening her."

"I know that." Liquid said, a thoughtful look on his face. "And that just might work. Go get your guys, I have an idea on where my sister might be."

Butch grinned and gave Liquid a nod before turning and leaving.

After putting the broom back in it's closet, liquid followed Butch out the door.

Oo000ooo000oO

Liquid, Butch, and the newly christened Tunnel Snakes were clustered near the Level 20 restrooms, waiting out of sight. Liquid was on lookout while Butch and his gang whispered among themselves.

"Guys, quiet down! She's coming!" Liquid hissed back at his companions when he heard the door to the womens restroom start to open.

They immediately shut up and waited for Liquid's signal to spring out of hiding. He held up his hand, watching as his sister walked out of the restroom, turned left, and started walking down the hall. When she was about ten feet away Liquid gave the signal and they ran out of the connecting hallway and blocked her path, effectively trapping her.

She stopped short, her eyes widening in surprise at the sudden appearance of her brother along with Butch and his gang. She recovered quickly, though, crossing her arms and fixed her gaze on Liquid.

"Just what are you doing, Liquid?" she asked her brother.

"We're tired of you beating us up all the time and we're here to put a stop to it!" he told her, with Butch and his gang trying to look as tough as a bunch of twelve and thirteen year old boys could look.

Brittany, for her part, was not impressed. "Really?" she asked.

Liquid crossed his arms and gave his sister a determined look. "Yeah, really."

Brittany glowered and clenched her fists. "Well, maybe if you guys would quit trying to scam and pick on people, then maybe I wouldn't have to punch you guys." she growled, which made the Tunnel Snakes hesitate.

"We're serious, Brittany." Liquid told her.

"So am I, liquid." was her response.

They stood there in silence, Butch and Liquid on one side, Brittany on the other, engaged in a battle of wills. After staring at each other for a few moments, Brittany twisted her head from side to side to pop the vertebrae in her neck like she usually did before doing something strenuous.

The Tunnel Snakes, knowing this, started backing away from Butch and Liquid.

"And how are you going to make me stop, Liquid? Beat me up?" she asked as the Tunnel Snakes turned tail and ran.

"If we have to." Liquid answered.

Brittany arched an eyebrow at her brother. Liquid kept his resolve, even though the little voice in the back of his head was telling him to start running. It wasn't because his sister was physically intimidating- far from it.

From her snow white hair that when down was just an avalanche of curls, to her dark brown skin, almond eyes with blue irises, and a bust and curves that put some of the grown women in the Vault to shame, to the outside observer Brittany did not look threatening in any way shape or form.

Butch and Liquid, however, would counter that while she had gone up another cup size while most girls her age were getting their first bras, she punched harder than almost every other boy in the Vault. And this was the crucial bit, _was_ _really good at it._

Those reasons were why Liquid held firm when she asked "You think I can't take you and Butch?" and he responded with "It's not just me and Butch, we got the Tunnel Snakes with us. Right, guys?"

Liquid felt a lead weight settle into his stomach at their lack of a response, and the little voice in the back of his head started screaming for him to run.

"Guys?" he asked again.

The corner of Brittany's mouth quirked up into a smile and she pointed to behind him and Butch. "I think they've had a change of heart, Liquid."

Liquid and Butch looked behind them to see the Tunnel Snakes beating a hasty retreat down the corridor.

"You lousy sons-of-bitches!" Liquid yelled after them.

Butch, however, was not so kind. "GET BACK HERE YOU YELLOW BELLIED COWARDS!" he yelled at their retreating backs.

It was all in vain as the Tunnel Snakes reached the end of the corridor, turned, and were gone. Butch and Liquid watched them go, then turned back to see that Brittany was still there, cracking her knuckles.

"Butch?" Liquid asked.

"Yeah, Liquid?" Butch answered.

"Change of plans. RUN!"

Both boys then ran in opposite directions down the cross hallway, catching Brittany by. She hesitated for a moment, then dashed off down the way Liquid had went.

Oo000ooo000oO

Liquid was finally able to give his sister the slip in the grow up, going out one of the side entrances and taking the stairs down several levels before he got to one of the lesser used ones and holed up in the mens room.

Using one of the toilets as a seat, he started calling up files on his Pip Boy.

 _"Hopefully, she won't think to look in_ here _."_ he thought to himself. _"_ _Well, w_ _hile I'm here,_ _I might as well put the time to good use."_

Oo000ooo000oO

Brittany huffed in irritation as she left the grow ups. Liquid had given her the slip in there and had gotten away to hole up God knows where-

Brittany paused as an idea hit her and looked at her Pip Boy. She might not know where in the Vault her brother had hid himself away, but there was a way she could find out, so she headed for the maintenance closet for the level she was on.

Stepping inside, she closed the doors behind her and locked them, then grabbed a stool and drug it over to a wall panel. Taking a screwdriver and a patch cable from one of the pockets of her jumpsuit, Brittany removed the panel, revealing a junction box on the other side with a mass of wiring in it.

Looking at the chart on the back of the panel, she found the connection she was looking for and plugged the patch cable into it, then connected the other end into her Pip Boy.

The reason why she was doing this was because unbeknownst to almost the entire population of the Vault, the maintenance closet on every level had an access panel in it that the data networks of the Vault's systems were ran through.

And if you had the right equipment- like, say, the maintenance variant of the Pip Boy 3000 and knowledge of which root commands to use, you could access a wide variety of systems. Another thing that she knew that a lot of people didn't was that Pip Boy's had a transponder in them that was keyed to the doors activation mechanisms. It was one of the ways the Overseer and Security kept an eye on everyone.

She didn't have access to the systems that they used, but she _did_ have access to the data logging equipment. So what she was run a search for door activations with Liquid's Pip Boy for the last hour. It took a couple of minutes, but then lines of code scrolled up on her screen.

Brittany took a look at the most recent entry, which the code said that Liquid had last gone through the door to the men's room on Level 21 and hadn't left. While she was at it, Brittany also ran a check for Butch and saw that the last door log was for the storage room in the diner.

Nodding to herself, Brittany erased her tracks and disconnected her Pip Boy from the network, pulled the patch cable, then put the panel back into place before leaving the closet and heading for her brother's location.

Oo000ooo000oO

Having been holed up in the men's room for about an hour, Liquid figured that Brittany had either cooled off enough that she wasn't going to pound him into paste or she had decided to go track down Butch and his gang.

Making a mental note that he still had to think up something to do to Wally, Liquid got off the toilet and exited the stall. Taking a moment to wash his hands at the sink, he then headed for the door. Pushing the open button, the door slid open, and he only had enough time to register that his sister was standing there before she punched him in the face, knocking him flat on his back.

"Now Brittany, wait, there's no need- oh God, NOT THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!" was all Liquid managed to get out before she started.

The fight wasn't long, just a couple of minutes. It ended with Brittany beating Liquid halfway unconscious with a toilet seat lid before giving him a swirlie. Leaving her brother in a soaked, groaning, pile on the floor, she stalked out of the bathroom.

"Now for the other one..." she muttered, noting that she had busted open one of her knuckles during the fight. "Gonna have to be careful..."

Oo000ooo000oO

Butch was hunkered down behind some crates in the diner's dry goods storage room, alternating between hoping that Brittany wouldn't find him, and furious anger at his so called "gang" for running and leaving him and Liquid to face Brittany alone.

"Lousy sons-of-bitches..." Butch muttered, peeking over the crates when he heard some movement outside.

He held his breath as he watched the door, hoping that whoever it was on the other side didn't come through, and if they did, he hoped it wasn't Brittany.

Whoever it was, they didn't need anything from the storage room, and when he heard the door to the Diner cycle open and closed Butch breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"Oh man, I really hope she doesn't think to look in here." Butch whispered to himself.

Busy as Butch had been watching the door, he hadn't realized that there was an access hatch to the utilities conduits in the storage room. _Brittany_ , on the other hand, knew all about it. This was because when she was seven, she had tried to convert a toaster to run on small energy cells. It hadn't gone well, with the toaster ending up a glowing pile of slag and carbonized bread, and her ending up in a lot of trouble because said toaster had been the Overseer's, and it had been handed down as a family heirloom from when Almodovar ancestor had brought it in with her at the onset of the Great War.

So, as a punishment, Brittany had been ordered to find and grease every access hatch for the main levels of the Vault. She had rather liked that "punishment", as she had gotten to explore and discover new things.

Like the fact that the utilities conduits had enough space in them that someone of small stature – like say, a twelve year old girl- could fit into them easily. Which was why instead of coming in through the only door to the storage room, Brittany had went to the room across the hall and entered the conduit there, and crawled over to the storage room.

She had ended up covered in dirt, dust, and cobwebs, and her chest had made things a tight squeeze in a couple of places, but she had managed to get there. Popping the latch open with her standard screwdriver, Brittany eased it open and took a peek. There, to her delight, was Butch Deloria, crouched down behind some crates, watching the door.

Quietly, she pushed the hatch open and crawled out of the conduit. Getting to her feet, she stepped up behind him, took careful aim, and planted her size five foot in Butch's butt.

"YEEEEE-OOOOOW!" Butch yelled as he leaped up like a rocket and threw himself over the crates he was hiding behind.

"Hi, Butch!" Brittany said in greeting as she climbed over the crates after him.

"Brittany? How the hell did you get in here?" Butch yelped as he backed away from her, one hand on his sore behind.

"Maintenance hatches, Butch. They're everywhere." was Brittany's answer.

"Oh, son-ofa- _bitch_!" Butch said as he looked over her shoulder to where he could see said hatch standing open.

Panic flashed across Butch's face when bumped up against the door to the storage room.

"But, I'd be worrying more about what I'm going to be _doing_ to you than that." Brittany informed him as she advanced.

In his mind's maelstrom of panicked thoughts, Butch suddenly had a realization that pierced through the panic like a cutting laser: He was backed up against the door to the dry goods storage room. The _unlocked_ door to the dry goods storage room.

Butch uttered a bark of nervous laughter and slammed his fist on the "open" button.

"You'll have to catch me first!" he crowed as the door slid open.

Startled, Brittany hesitated and thus let Butch bolt out of there. Shaking her head, she charged after him.

"GET BACK HERE DELORIA SO I CAN KICK YOUR BUTT!" Brittany yelled as she ran after him.

Oo000ooo000oO

As he listened to Security Chief Hannen deliver his report, Overseer Almodovar looked out his office window at the atrium for Vault 101, where the residents were enjoying Talking Hour, the hour of the day that they had set aside so they could mingle and catch up with each other.

He always appreciated Talking Hour, as it showed to him how neatly and efficiently he was running the Vault-

"So, in short, Mack and I are gonna be able to make the game tomorrow." Hannen said in closing.

"Thank you, Chief." Almodovar said as a frown creased his brows.

"You're welcome sir." Hannen responded.

"Though there's one more thing." Almodovar added.

"Sir?" Hannen asked.

"Could you come here for a second?" Almodovar asked, beckoning the Security Chief over.

"Tell me, Hannen, what do you see?" asked Almodovar when Hannen was standing next to him.

Hannen took a moment to look out the window before responding.

"Well, sir, it looks like the young Ms Cox is kicking the young Mr DeLoria up and down the atrium." Hannen told him.

Almodovar sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought so. Round up the usual suspects."

"Yes, sir."

Oo000ooo000oO

With a pained groan Liquid pushed himself to his knees. The back of his head was throbbing from where Brittany had hit him with the toilet seat two or three times before dunking his head in the bowl and giving him a swirlie, and when he gingerly touched it he found that was a large lump swelling up back there.

"Ow..." he groaned, and leaned up against the wall of the stall for support.

With great care, he got to his feet and tottered over to the sinks to get a look at himself in the mirror. What Liquid saw was that he looked like hell. The orbit of his left eye was swelling up and starting to turn an ugly shade of purple, he had a split lip, and the right side of his face was beginning to swell.

"Crap.."he muttered to himself.

Being banged up this bad meant that he was going to have to go to the clinic, and that meant he was gonna get the lecture in morality when his dad saw him, which he really wished he could skip. Especially this time, considering the number his sister had did to him.

"Ohhh... those sons-of-bitches are gonna _pay_ for this..." Liquid muttered as he gingerly straightened out his hair the best he could. No sense in letting the Vault know that his sister had swirlied him.

Once he had gotten himself presentable, or as close to it as he could get, Liquid turned and walked out of the bathroom-

-and right into the arms of two Security Officers.

"Alright, Cox, you're coming with us." the one said.

"Oh, come on guys, don't you think I've been through enough?" Liquid asked, pointing at his face.

"That's for the Overseer to decide." the other one said as he grabbed Liquid by the arm and started dragging him down the hall.

"Aw, man..."

Oo000ooo000oO

Almost immediately, the first two members of what Almodovar had referred to as the "usual suspects" were brought to his office: Brittany Cox and Butch DeLoria.

"So, Mr DeLoria, what did you do to make Ms Cox here literally kick your posterior up and down the Atrium?" was the fist question that he asked.

Butch scowled and slouched sullenly. "I didn't do nothin'." he muttered. "The spaz bitch went crazy- OW!"

Ms Cox, Almodovar reflected, had a _great_ right cross.

Butch meanwhile, had whirled to face Brittany. "Do that again and I'll pound ya, ya crazy spaz!" he snarled.

Brittany was unimpressed by his threat. "Don't call me a bitch." she said evenly.

"I'll call you whatever I want-"

"ENOUGH!" Almodovar roared.

They fell silent and turned back to face him. Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Overseer turned his attention to Brittany.

"Since Mr DeLoria is not being cooperative, what happened, Ms Cox?" he asked.

Brittany spared a moment to give Butch a glare, then answered Almodovar's question. "Butch, his gang of idiots, and my brother confronted me and threatened to beat me up if I didn't stop interfering with their plans." she answered calmly.

" **What?** " the Overseer exclaimed. "You were going to gang up on a _girl_?" he asked Butch accusingly.

Butch merely scowled. "She don't punch like any girl should." he muttered.

"Unbelievable, Mr DeLoria. This is beyond the pale, even for you." said the Overseer, scandalized that he and his friends would do something like that.

Butch looked up and had opened his mouth to say something when the intercom on the Overseer's desk buzzed. He snapped his mouth shut and merely scowled as the Overseer shifted his attention away from him.

"Yes?" Almodovar asked into the intercom.

"We got Mr Cox and the parents." Hannen's voice said from the speaker.

"I see. Send them in." was Almodovar's response.

Oo000ooo000oO

When everyone had came into the Overseer's office (or in Ellen Deloria's case, drunkenly staggered in and collapsed into a chair), Almodovar leveled his gaze at Liquid.

"Why is it, whenever there is some sort of "incident", I can almost guarantee that _you_ are involved somehow, even if I can't _prove_ it?" he asked.

Liquid cleared his throat and started to answer. "Well, you see-" he began.

"Quiet, Cox. You're in enough trouble as it is." growled Almodovar.

"Me? Why am _I_ in trouble? _She_ was the one beating up on _me_!" protested Liquid, his tone shocked.

Almodovar was unmoved by Liquid's act, however. "Which, according to her, she did because _you_ and _Butch_ threatened to gang up on her with your friends."

"Lawrence Scott Cox!" James castigated his son. "You threatened to beat up your sister? Shame on you!"

Liquid turned to face his father. "Hey! I would like to point out all the times she's beaten _me_ up-!"

James crossed his arms and gave his son a disapproving look. "You know it's wrong to hit a girl." he insisted.

Liquid rolled his eyes. "Yes, Brittany is just _soo_ freaking helpless." he said sarcastically. "You do know that she's pretty much the _only_ girl in the Vault who the reasons for that rule _don't_ apply to?"

"It's still wrong to hit a girl." James insisted, sticking to his guns.

"We weren't gonna beat her up! We were just trying to get her to leave us alone!" Liquid countered, his voice rising in frustration.

"Well, quit doing things you shouldn't and I _would_ leave you alone." Brittany interjected.

Liquid whirled and leveled an accusatory finger at his sister. "And _you_ need to learn to mind your gorramed business-"

"ENOUGH!" Almodovar shouted, stopping the argument in it's tracks. He waited a couple of moments before continuing. "While Ms Cox's behavior is something that is discouraged for the sake of the Vault, in this case she _was_ justified in her actions, even if her actions were against the rules. However, that does _not_ mean that I am giving her a pass for future actions. Do you understand, Ms Cox?"

Brittany nodded. "Yes, Overseer."

"Good. Now step up to my desk and hold out your hand." Almodovar instructed.

Brittany did as she was instructed and the Overseer slapped her gently on the wrist with his hand. "There." he said. "That was your punishment. Remember what I said."

"Yes, Overseer."

Almodovar waved towards the door. "You're dismissed." he told her, and Brittany wasted no time exiting the room. He then turned his attention to Liquid and Butch. "And as for you two, Mr Cox and Mr Deloria, what you two did was inexcusable. And since you two seem to have enough free time to come up with this sort of nonsense, I'm giving you both extra work assignments for the next three months to teach you a lesson."

Liquid recoiled at his sentence while Butch just slumped his shoulders.

"What?" was Liquid's response.

"Aw, man..." Butch groaned.

The Overseer's eyes narrowed as he looked at the two of them. "I can make it six months if you have a problem with that..." he threatened.

Both boys immediately took up a conciliatory tone.

"No, no, we're good. No need to do that." Liquid said.

"What he said." Butch added, pointing at Liquid.

"Good." said Almodovar. "Now get out of here. I have more important things to do than to deal with you two.

Liquid turned and was ready to bolt, but before he could James had snagged him by the ear.

"Owowowowow..."

"I think you and I should have a nice, long, talk, after I check to make sure you're okay." James said as he started pulling Liquid along behind him.

"Aw man, haven't I suffered enough?" complained Liquid.

"And I think we'll start with that attitude of yours." James added.

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow..."

Oo000ooo000oO

Dunking his mop in the bucket, Liquid swirled it around a couple of times before pulling it out and sticking it in the wringer. He wrenched the handle over, pressing the excess water out of it, then let go of the handle and resumed mopping.

He sighed. This _sucked_. And he he had three more months of this to look forward to. Three months of mopping the halls of the Vault.

"This _sucks_." he muttered to himself.

The sound of a door opening up the corridor made Liquid pause in his mopping to look up. He was about to call out a warning that he had just mopped the floor when he saw that it was Butch walking towards him carrying a mop.

"Hey, Butch." he said as his occasional partner in crime came up to him.

"Hey, Liquid. You need some help?" Butch asked.

"Sure. It'd be nice to have some company." Liquid said.

Butch nodded and dunked his mop in the bucket, wrung it, and started mopping. After a couple of minutes he spoke again.

"You know, you got off lighter than I did."

Liquid gave his friend a look. "What are you talking about?" he asked as he paused to dunk his mop again. "I got the crap beaten out of me by my sister, one of Dad's Moral Lectures, and I get to mop this place for the next three months when I'm not sleeping, in school, or in the grow up."

"Yeah, but at least you can walk by girls without them giggling." Butch pointed out.

Liquid paused in his wringing the mop. "Ohhhh." he said with a grimace. "Sorry, Butch."

"It's not your fault." Butch told him. "Though, when we're done with the three months, you gonna want any help then?"

"With what, Butch?" Liquid asked neutrally as he resumed mopping.

"Getting revenge on my so called gang." Butch answered.

Liquid smiled. "I would love some." he said.

Oo000ooo000oO

End.


End file.
